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How to Create a Verified E-Aadhaar Card PDF on Linux

The E-Aadhaar Card PDF which can be downloaded from the UID Authority of India contains a signature and some brain damaged verification code. In the middle of the page on the right side it shows “Not verified”, a yellow question mark and some more text about the digital signature. This question mark has to be clicked which then verification process. When this process is finished the question mark is replaced by a green tick and the text reads “Signature valid”. Since everybody just prints the page and deletes the file this verification process is completely superfluous. Since a smart ass wanted to save some money these documents are not signed by a proper key which makes the whole process a bit cumbersome.

The following steps show how to download the Aadhaar Card and convert it to a nice PDF:

Click on the question mark, a window with title “Signature Validation Status” opens.

Click “Signature Properties” to open the window with the same title.

Click “Show Certificate” to open the certificate window.

Choose the “Trust” tab.

Click “Add to Trusted Identities”.

Click “OK” to close the certificate window.

Click “Validate Signature”.

Click “Close” to close the Signature Properties window.

Print the page into the file “aadhaar-verified.ps”.

Convert the postscript file to pdf. The following command is one line. The “sed” removes a stupid “copy protection” from the postscript file and ps2pdf then creates the PDF file.sed "/mark currentfile eexec/,/cleartomark/ d" aadhaar-verified.ps | ps2pdf - aadhaar-verified.pdf

Now print the copy of your E-Aadhaar Card on paper and make backups of your PDF file.

Now you have a nice verified PDF which you can print without any problems. Wasn’t that simple, eh?